Was I talking to a scammer?!

Question

I recently made an offer on an item on Ebay. I contacted Ebay customer service about cancelling my offer. I got the phone # from Google. The man I talked to said to go to a local store that sold gift cards & buy an Ebay gift card. I hung up on him because I thought it might be a scam. The next day I got an email from Ebay saying someone from India was trying to access my account. I changed my password. Was I talking to a scammer?!

eburtonlab · Answer

@iamdebraann

eBay does not have a public number for customer service, so if you found a number using Google, it was almost certainly an old number or a scam of one sort or another. And if you were asked to purchase gift cards, that is a sure sign of a scam. Scammers specifically ask for gift cards because once a card redemption code is revealed, the money on the card can be immediately spent with little recourse after that, unlike many other payment methods.

If you can recreate your original search, report the search ad to Google.

See here to report a scam customer service page or ad:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Ask-a-Mentor/report-a-scam-site/m-p/32282509/highlight/true#M52955